How Do You Record/Reproduce Good Reggae Bass Sound?

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Robertt8

Robertt8

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I've got this cheap Squire P-Bass (with one pickup), and it always it's always seems to produce a really growl-ly or throaty sound if I don't turn the tone know down almost all the way. Is this what they do to get that deep sound with little finger noise?

Also, does reggae use much of an effect on bass or is it pretty clean?

Thanks!
Tait
 
Yo Roberto of San Fran:


No matter the cost extent of your gear, you can tweak and experiment and get something reasonable -- but it is work, no matter what gear.

I don't use reverb on bass -- it's got strength and motion. The venue of music dictates just how much motion and strength you might want. Deepen bass? Raise the EQ lows a bit and lower the highs. But, don't get carried away.

Now, there is electric bass sound and upright bass sound and the bass that good old Redd Foxx plays on his reruns -- sounds pretty damn good to me.

So, when you run it through your monitors, your ears will configure and disfigure and reject or accept what is there.

For example, I just plugged in my new RNC and ran some tests this PM -- I like what it does for vocals; I haven't yet run some bass through it but it most likely will be sounding nice. I have compression settings on my rig, 2816, but I sure do like the RNC and I don't sell them or work for the company. I'm retired and I like it.

So, use the search button here and other sites and see what you can learn to "try" when you turn on your gear -- big or small!

Green Hornet:D :p :p :cool:
 
Get some Bob Marley CD's and listen through your monitors to get a good idea of reggae bass. Are you micing an amp or going direct? You should be able to get a pretty decent sound just going direct.
 
silly robert, you've been around here long enough to know better than to ask "i've got a cheap piece of gear, how do i get a vintage, classic, professional sound out of it?" :p

seriously, get some marley and other reggae and listen to it through your monitors. get some film footage and see what kind of gear they're playing with. a lot of that sound is in the gear they use. you can't use a rock drumkit with remo pinstripes for heads and expect to get a good, traditional jazz sound out of it.

fwiw, in my experience, pbasses tend to be more growly and throaty ("mean" is what i call it). jazz basses tend to be more twangy/trebly. maybe get hold of a jbass and run it into an ampeg cabinet, mic the cab and run a line DI. mix, compress and eq to taste and between the two, you should be able to get a usable tone.

fwiw, i never put reverb on bass--it kills the punch and usually makes the bass float in and out of the mix, and that's not good. the only time bass sees any reverb is when i've got some on the mix bus, and even then it's sometimes too much.


wade
 
Actually, I think you are correct in your approach. The Reggae players most certainly lower the treble to remove muchhe finger sound but there are different types of Reggae bass.

The Bob Marly stuff is an older style of Reggae bass sound, pre Hip Hop and not electronic. On some newer Reggae stuff they use synths to get a very low, deep sound. Those that use basses obviously turn the treble down either with the tone control or on the board. I would suggest recording the instrument in a more falt range and useing the best EQ you can get your hands on to get the sound.

Another important factor in bass sound is the strings. You should record with fresh strings if possible and you should check out different types of strings and their charactersitics and sound. Since you know the sound you want, if you have a good music store near you they should be able to help. Otherwise, check out the web sites of manufacturers and see what they say.

One last suggestion is there are boxes that will give you extra and deeper bass. Some are pedal that produce the tone an octave lower though your would not necessarily want the top note, just the bottom. Whether or not this would work is up to your ingenuity. Then there is a dbx box that produces lower bass (I believe) and a few others. Aphex now makes a pedal that might do this. They have a bass boost type device on their recent Aural Exciter and I believe a cheaper pedal version of it.

I would not strongly recommend those boxes since simply using the right strings and adjusting the EQ will give the best result.

Something that took me a while to get used to was the monitoring of bass. Of all the instruments, bass seems to me to change most dramatically from one monitor to the next. If you are monitoring on near field speakers without a sub-bass speaker, you might not be hearing all of the lower bass that is recorded. Thus if you add too much, when you do hear the mix on a more full range speaker, there will be too much bass and it will tend to be boomy.

I also think that some of the more recent Reggae tracks might use a mixture of different bass sounds. I have experimented with this and found it to be pretty good. I can get the real low, deep sound and still have definition by mixing in a more straigh forward sounding bass. The real low, deep, treble almost off sounds tend to have little definition and be weak on the attack. By doubling the bass part with a regular bass sound your get the right mix of attack and bottom.

By the way, I have read interview with many engineers that roll off some treble from the bass no matter what styl of music they are recording to eliminate fret noise, buzzing and the like. It tends to make the bass sound tighter.

Finally, there are no rules in how to make the sound and I am sure that Reggae musicians experiment and use various techniques including direct boxes, amplifiers, different microphones etc. The main thing is to know what sound you want to hear and get it any way you can. If it sounds right, it is right.
 
fresh strings are too twangy for reggae.

i use a conklin groove tools 5-string with the low-B through a Sansamp Bass DI.

i leave the setting on the bass at U. on the DI box, i boost the bass a good bit, boost the treble a little bit, and slightly reduce the presence. you get the wumpa-wumpa with just a little treble so you can distinguish the note.
 
in my recording tech lab, a raggae band consisting of three old rich white guys came in to record. Their bass player was using one of those really nice eernie ball basses. It was NOT fit for raggae at all... way too bright. When we were mixing we compressed the bass and EQ'd out the some of the highs. It sounded OK.. nothing spectacular. Then we got the idea to put some cheesy flange on it. BOOM instant token 80's raggae sound. On top of it all the song was about smoking big spliffs on the beach.
 
Just for the record...

It's Reggae, not Raggae...just so 'ya know...;)
 
... once read this article about a session player doing a lot of dub and reggae.. he used a 60ies P-bass for it WITH THE ORIGINAL FLATWOUNDS on it ... talk about deep, dead tone without sustain..


Flatwounds help , heavy gauge strings help, high action helps, cutting all treble/tone helps, adding a sub-octave sometimes helps, doubling the bass with a deep synth sometimes helps, playing with your right hands' thumb helps alot, playing all notes with your index of your left hand while using the other fingers to mute could help too, tubes could help (the good kind, not the cheap kind), playing more to the neck than to the bridge could help.... (I have a shitty P-type bass around with this setup)


Hope this helps,
Herwig
 
Hi, there are some great answers on here to your question about reggae bass.
I produce reggae and dub, I find it really depends on what style of reggae you are listening to. Most later bob Marley stuff was either done in big uk studios or if not the tunes were mixed and overdubbed in these studios so isn't really a good representation of reggae bass. It's all good equipment of the time, no special tricks.
Now there's the early jamacian reggae, studio one, channel one etc oh, and lee perrys early bob recordings. Big old amps but nothing special, these producers wernt rich or on the cutting edge of technology (king tubby excepted!) they designed thier tunes to be hits on the local soundsystems! Studio one for example used 3 mics on their bass. Rolled off the treble on the board and compressed gently with a compreesor - most compressors of the age were either valve or had a good character. Mixed loud so the bass is the lead feature of the song, which is how it's written. Jamacian dub pioneers like king tubby experimented massivly- all on 2" tape big valve compressors and great old board, this combo espacialy the recording to tape generates the clasic dub/reggae sound!!
Hope this helps!!
 
in my recording tech lab, a raggae band consisting of three old rich white guys came in to record. Their bass player was using one of those really nice eernie ball basses. It was NOT fit for raggae at all... way too bright. When we were mixing we compressed the bass and EQ'd out the some of the highs. It sounded OK.. nothing spectacular. Then we got the idea to put some cheesy flange on it. BOOM instant token 80's raggae sound. On top of it all the song was about smoking big spliffs on the beach.

What kind of wack reggae do you listen to? Cause I'm not feelin' the flanger thing, mang.
 
Hey, it's not his fault, they're on GMT in London.



:D.

G.
 
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